Kubuntu a dist in crisis?

[Chris Jones]

On 27 Oct 2009, at 8:19pm, Paul Rumelhart wrote:

> Take a look at the Computer Languages Benchmark Game: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/
>
> They run different programs written in a variety of languages on the  
> same architecture and show the results.  You almost always see C and  
> C++ (with different compiler optimizations) at the top and scripted  
> languages like Perl, Python, and Ruby at the bottom when measuring  
> speed and resource usage.  Occasionally, something like Haskell or  
> Ada will do surprisingly well.
>
> Scripting languages have a different goal in mind, in my opinion,  
> that makes them unsuitable for some types of programming.  If it  
> should be lean, mean, and if resource usage is important, they  
> should be using C or C++ or something similar.  In the data tables  
> on the page referenced above, the difference is often minutes  
> compared to a few seconds.  If every application library and  
> application front-end was written in a scripting language, our vast  
> memory, CPU, and hard-disk resources wouldn't save us from a  
> sluggish, unusable system.  On the other hand, if it really is  
> scripting that is being done, than writing it in C or C++ is way  
> overkill and ease-of-development is far more important.
>
> When it comes down to it, a programming language is a tool.  Use it  
> where it makes sense.

Well said. I agree 100%. Too much hype over scripting languages like  
python, if you ask me, and too many people trying to write  
applications with it that aren't appropriate.

Chris